University of Limerick graduates celebrate success at national design awards

There was success for University of Limerick graduates at the recent Irish Design Institute Graduate Awards.

Three graduates from University of Limerick’s Product Design and Technology won awards at this year’s IDI Graduate Awards while a fourth was highly commended —a significant achievement as there were 800 entries from colleges and universities across Ireland.

The winners were Matthew Patterson (Universal Design), Ihsan Kamil (Product Industrial or Consumer, and Product Social) and Danny Bichard (Product Design: Medical Devices), while Jack Harte was Highly Commended in Product Industrial/Consumer category.

The awards, created to recognise and reward outstanding and innovative design by new designers at the beginning of their creative careers, were handed out at a ceremony held recently in Technological University Dublin.

Commenting on the graduates’ achievements Dr Muireann McMahon, Lecturer in Product Design and Technology at University of Limerick said: “The IDI Graduate Awards are really important for Product Design and the School of Design in UL, not only to acknowledge the creativity and innovation of our graduates but also to benchmark the quality of the work against other colleges.

“This year, winning four categories - Product Consumer/ Industrial; Product Social; Product Medical and Universal Design - demonstrates that our Product Design and Technology graduates have the power to create real and positive impact in people’s lives.

“Previous IDI Graduate Awards winners have gone on to have phenomenal careers. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for our graduates,” Dr McMahon added.